Ink &
Ingredients
Ink and Ingredients is an adult only cooking class with a story to tell.
A monthly cooking class inspired by a book, think culinary workshop meets literary salon. Come for the hands-on cooking, stay for the conversation!
September’s Pick!
A Love Letter to Legacy & Leaves
September 25th @ 6 PM | Location: 3211 Shannon Road - $60 per person
Some stories aren't about the spotlight, they're about what we build quietly, in the rooms we don't let anyone else into. This month, we're steeping ourselves in it.
Ink & Ingredients is diving into Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray, a novel about the woman who ignited the Harlem Renaissance by gathering its brightest writers around her own table, all while keeping a secret love affair hidden behind her public triumph. We're pairing it with a hands-on Tea-Making experience. With a lesson honoring the literary salons where Jessie built a movement one cup at a time, and the slow steep it takes to draw out what's rich and hidden beneath the surface.
Hands-on Tea-Making experience: blending, steeping, and pairing from scratch
Guided book reflection and discussion around Harlem Rhapsody
Session packet to guide your experience and keep the conversation going
You're snagging a recipe card
Some fun challenges along the way
Come ready to read, steep, and uncover something new.
Need the book? Snag it here: https://bookshop.org/lists/ink-and-ingredients-book-club
Order The Book!
Click the image or the link here for our online bookshop.
Diving into
Black Women
Stories!
Upcoming 2026 Sessions
Sessions rotate monthly. Catch us at our office and quarterly we pop outside to the Durham Hotel!
Ink & Ingredients is a hands-on cooking class with a literary twist. Each month, we build a full culinary experience, knife skills, technique, and a shared meal, around the themes of a hand-picked book. You'll leave with new skills, a dish you made yourself, and a great conversation, whether or not you've finished the book.
Click the images below to book the class or add to your cart!
A Love Letter to Legacy & Leaves
September 25th @ 6 PM | Location: 3211 Shannon Road - $60 per person
Some stories aren't about the spotlight, they're about what we build quietly, in the rooms we don't let anyone else into. This month, we're steeping ourselves in it.
Ink & Ingredients is diving into Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray, a novel about the woman who ignited the Harlem Renaissance by gathering its brightest writers around her own table, all while keeping a secret love affair hidden behind her public triumph. We're pairing it with a hands-on Tea-Making experience. With a lesson honoring the literary salons where Jessie built a movement one cup at a time, and the slow steep it takes to draw out what's rich and hidden beneath the surface.
Hands-on Tea-Making experience: blending, steeping, and pairing from scratch
Guided book reflection and discussion around Harlem Rhapsody
Session packet to guide your experience and keep the conversation going
You're snagging a recipe card
Some fun challenges along the way
Come ready to read, steep, and uncover something new.
Need the book? Snag it here: https://bookshop.org/lists/ink-and-ingredients-book-club
A Love Letter to What Runs Thick
October 24th | 7:00 PM | The Durham Hotel | $60 per person
Some secrets don't stay buried, they thicken, they pool, they rise to the surface. This month, we're getting into the science (and the danger) of it all.
We're reading My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite, a darkly funny, unsettling story about loyalty, family, and just how far "blood is thicker than water" really goes. We're pairing it with a Viscosity Lesson: Blood Is Thicker Than Water, where we'll build a layered cocktail (or mocktail) using ingredients of different densities, watching them separate and settle in real time, just like the secrets in the book.
Hands-on layered cocktail/mocktail demo exploring density and viscosity
Guided book reflection and discussion around My Sister, the Serial Killer
Custom bookmarks to take home
Session packet to guide your experience and keep the conversation going
2 drinks + food included with your ticket
Come ready to read, sip, and see what rises to the top.
Need the book? Snag it here: https://bookshop.org/lists/ink-and-ingredients-book-club
A Love Letter to Second Chances
November 14th | 6:00 PM | Orenge South Durham | $60 per person
Some stories are about starting over, and doing it loud, messy, and on your own terms. This month, we're wrapping something simple into something worth savoring.
We're reading Reel by Kennedy Ryan, a story about art, reinvention, and chasing what lights you up. We're pairing it with a hands-on Hand Pies experience, because there's something poetic about taking a few humble ingredients and folding them into something completely new.
Hands-on Hand Pies cooking experience — filling and folding from scratch
Guided book reflection and discussion around Reel
Custom bookmarks to take home
Session packet to guide your experience and keep the conversation going
Take-home hand pies (or dough/filling kit)
Some fun surprises
Come ready to read, fold, and fall in love with something new.
Need the book? Snag it here: https://bookshop.org/lists/ink-and-ingredients-book-club
A Love Letter to Sweetness & Second Acts
December 11th | 6:00 PM | Durhamite SouthCourt | $60 per person
Some love stories deserve to be celebrated with something sweet. This month, we're closing out the year exactly that way.
We're reading The Art of Loving You by Natasha Bishop, a tender second-chance romance from the Forever Falling series, and pairing it with a Cake Decorating experience, because nothing says "cheers to a beautiful year" like getting a little messy with frosting.
Hands-on Cake Decorating experience, piping, layering, and finishing touches
Guided book reflection and discussion around The Art of Loving You
Custom bookmarks to take home
Session packet to guide your experience and keep the conversation going
Take-home decorated treat
Some special surprises!
Come ready to read, decorate, and end the year sweetly.
Need the book? Snag it here: https://bookshop.org/lists/ink-and-ingredients-book-club
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nope! But, we do reccomend that you do to avoid spoilers!
This is a cooking class first. The book adds flavor to the conversation, but you don't need to finish it (or even start it) to have a great time and learn something new in the kitchen.
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All ingredients and hands-on cooking instruction
A dish (or dishes) you make and enjoy that evening
Take-home items each month (bookmarks, recipe cards, mix, or treats — varies by session)
A guided book discussion and session packet
Access to our private fable where we build community as we read
The space, tools, and equipment for the class
When you break it down, you're getting a cooking class, take-home goodies, and a curated experience for less than what most solo cooking classes or dinners out would cost. It’s a thoughtful and well-rounded experience geared towards you building skills that will last beyong this class.
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Because it's not just a book club; it's a cooking class first. Think of the book as the theme, not the product. You're paying for hands-on instruction, real ingredients, and a full culinary experience, the same as you would for any other cooking class. Free book clubs typically just involve discussion. This is discussion plus what you create with your own hands!
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No problem. Each Ink & Ingredients session stands on its own. Come to one, come to all six; there's no subscription or commitment required.
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Absolutely. We design every session so people of all skill levels can jump in, learn something new, and leave with confidence, not just a full stomach.
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Yes! Many of our guests come for the cooking and food alone. The book is a conversation starter, not a requirement.
But they will get spoilers!
What You’ll Walk Away With
Every Ink & Ingredients session is a real cooking class, and real cooking classes teach real-life skills. Here's what you're actually building each time you join us:
Following directions, start to finish. Recipes teach you how to read steps in order and follow through, a skill that helps in the kitchen and everywhere else.
Managing your time. Cooking a dish means timing multiple steps at once, which is a great, low-pressure way to practice managing your time.
Working with others. You'll be cooking alongside other people, sharing space, taking turns, and communicating. That's teamwork in action.
Handling mistakes calmly. Recipes don't always go as planned, and that's okay. Learning to adjust when something goes wrong builds patience and problem-solving skills you can use anywhere.
Feeling proud of what you made. There's something powerful about finishing a dish with your own two hands. That sense of accomplishment carries over into how you feel about tackling other challenges.
You'll leave with a full plate, a good conversation, and a few new skills you didn't even realize you were building.
What a Session Looks Like
Each Ink & Ingredients gathering is built around a featured book by a Black woman author — chosen for the richness of its themes, the power of its language, and the culinary or sensory experiences it opens up.
Before we gather, you read. When we gather, we go deeper — into the text, into the food, into the conversation that lives at the intersection of the two. Sessions rotate across Durham venues that fit the spirit of the book: a dinner, a tasting, an evening in a bookshop, a gathering in a garden.
No two sessions look the same. All of them feel like something you needed.
The Book & The Bite
How we pair them
The food at Ink & Ingredients is never decorative. It is always an extension of the text — a flavor that echoes a theme, a dish that honors a character's culture, a recipe that lives inside the world of the book. Sometimes the connection is literal. Sometimes it is emotional. It is always intentional.
Because the story and the food are one, one is always an extension of the other.
The Conversation
Ink & Ingredients is not a book club where you report on what you read. It is a gathering where you share what moved you — and where someone else's response to the same page opens something new in you.
Sessions are facilitated with intention and warmth, creating space for the kind of conversation that doesn't happen everywhere: about Black women's writing, about food and identity, about what it means to nourish yourself and be nourished by a community of people who showed up to do the same thing.
Come ready to read. Come ready to eat. Come ready to be in community.
Not Local? Join Our Fable Club
Sealed & Seasoned Fable Club
Launching In September
Ink & Ingredients — delivered straight to your inbox!
Can't make it to Durham? Want to go even deeper between gatherings? The Sealed & Seasoned Fable Club brings Ink & Ingredients directly to you, digital access that unlocks before each monthly session, designed to immerse you in the book and the flavors before you ever sit down at the table.
What You Get With Every Unlock
A Love Letter
Each unlock opens with a love letter, written in the format A Love Letter to [theme] and [theme] Based on [Book], a meditation on the text that opens up the themes, the flavors, and the questions we'll be sitting with together. The letter you read before the gathering that makes the gathering richer.
Deep Dive Reading Packet
Our curated companion to the book, additional context, passages worth revisiting, discussion threads, and the questions that connect the text to food, identity, and community. The material we make for our in-person sessions, sent directly to you.
Digital Bookmark
Designed for each book. A piece of the Ink & Ingredients world, yours to keep, save it, print it, screenshot it into your life.
Recipe Card
The recipe connected to this month's book, developed by Kind Kitchen Group, tied to the themes of the text, and designed to be made in your own kitchen. Cook the story. Taste what we're reading.
Book Rating Page
A beautifully designed page for your own notes, reactions, and ratings, because your response to the book matters and deserves somewhere to live.
Access to the Fable Community
Join fellow readers between sessions, a space to talk books, share what you cooked, and be part of Ink & Ingredients no matter where you live.
$12
A Month
